Avalon Lockhart and the Clouded Crystal Ball
by AvalonLockhart
Summary: Avalon foresees something in Divination.


Avalon Lockhart stormed away from the castle, still angry and confused with what had just happened. She was angry with herself, mostly. She had just finished her pop quiz, which was seeing into the future using a simple crystal ball. Professor Trelawny's reasoning for this quiz was so that they could all 'successfully move on into the new phase of enlightenment' or some jazz like that. Avalon had taken her turn at seeing into the future of Hogwarts, and had been laughed at for what she saw, even though her images were dark and scary. "Perhaps your bad omens and your personal aura clouded together, dear," Professor Trelawny said kindly as Avalon tried to explain that Cedric Diggory (a boy all of Hufflepuff's 4th years knew she had a crush on), died at the hands of some slimy guy while Harry Potter watched, trapped. She knew her teacher was sympathetic because she liked Avalon, but Trelawny marked her down for seeing something she deemed as fiction. After all, not long before this, Harry himself had his own freak-out in Divination.

The girl let her feet make their rhythmic thuds as she made her way towards the Quidditch field. Since the Champions were getting ready for the second task, she knew that she wouldn't have seen Cedric practicing. Even if she DID see her crush, just what would she say to him? He was so nice when she'd summoned the courage to compliment him on the first task and to wish him luck on the second. There was no friggin' way she was going to warn him of- Of what, exactly? Of something she saw in a botched crystal ball reading? No no no. She would just get over it and let it all blow over. She'll read her newest Witch Weekly, and then when she got back after dinner, she'd cut out that article in Weirdness Today for Luna Lovegood. She'd let it all pass.

Things were never easy for Avalon at Hogwarts. Two years ago when her father taught at the school, she didn't know who he was to her. After her mother told her via owl in the end of the year, and had gone to see him in St. Mungo's Hospital, she knew things would never be the same for her. Rumor got out, there was an article written about it in Witch Weekly, and from there... People often got a kick out of telling Avalon that her mum was also Professor Trelawny, since she kinda, sorta, not really looked like a mini version of her. The heat of all of that had eventually died down, especially in the fear of Sirius Black escaping from Azkaban and the Dementors on the school grounds, but any mistake she made, any time she got in trouble, anytime someone outshined her, she was reminded of her heritage, and Avalon was sick of it.

" 'Ey Avalon!" Seamus Finnegan said with a wave in her direction.

"Alright?" Avalon asked, looking up at the Quidditch players above her, which, she saw were the scarlet and gold of Gryffindor.

"Oh yeah," Seamus replied. Neville, who sat beside him, remained silent with a book in his lap. He looked up just in time to accidentally catch Avalon's eye, and then they darted back down again.

"Still angry, I see," Avalon said. She hadn't expected a reply to this, but Neville nodded. "I really AM sorry," Avalon said earnestly. And she was. On their last Hogsmeade trip, Avalon had kept her mental promise and had bought Neville a 5-pack of Chocolate Frogs, which she sent to him via owl. She got no response from him, but she felt the glares at the back of her head from Gryffindor table dissipate. The glares to the back of her head from the Slytherin table, however...

"Alright," Neville said softly.

"Alright?" Avalon asked, confused.

Neville nodded, took out a Chocolate Frog from his robe pocket (dropping a couple of knuts and a scrap of parchment, which he scrambled to get along the way), and said again, "Alright."

Avalon smiled. "Alright."

"ALRIGHT!" Seamus yelled happily before he jumped down from where he sat. Avalon never knew what to expect from Seamus Finnegan, so she took a step backwards. He was unconcerned with her, as he bent down to grab at something where his feet had been only seconds ago. Avalon saw that he now held Trevor, which he gave to Neville. "Dropped this, mate," he said as he sat back down. Neville took his toad back, the Chocolate Frog forgotten. "You wanna stay 'n' watch?" Seamus asked, directing his attention back to Avalon.

"Not now. Bad day in class," Avalon replied.

"Don't listen to 'em, mate. You are who you are, not who your father is."

"Thanks, Seamus," Avalon said. She waved to the boys and walked away. She turned around when she heard a yell from above. She saw the Weasley twins as they beat the Bludger back and forth so quickly down the field that Avalon's pupils were bouncing. Finally, there was another 'WHACK', followed by a stream of curses from Angelina Johnson.

From there, Avalon walked as close to the school's outer border as possible before she made her way towards the Whomping Willow. When news of Avalon's birth father made it to Hogwarts, she found it hard to find her true friends. She'd spent a lot of time away from other students, helping Hagrid on the grounds with Ginny Weasley before she went weird. She learned how to 'tame' the Whomping Willow when she helped calm it down after Harry Potter and Ron Weasley crashed a car into it, making it grumpier than usual afterwards. She used it now as a safe haven from the rest of the school, seeing as students were too scared to ever go near it.

Avalon took her wand out and said, "Manosa!" A misted image of her own hand came from the tip of her wand, and it moved exactly as Avalon's non-wand hand moved. She put her hand as a fist and the mist did the same before it stretched towards the trunk of the Whomping Willow. With three knocks on the trunk, the tree stilled, and Avalon canceled the spell. Then, she began to climb. Once she made it to the top of the tree, she looked back towards the school. She sighed as the tension of the day left her, but the images of her crystal ball didn't. Avalon made a web with her wand, which became a makeshift hammock, and she settled in as she read the newest article about Harry Potter, which also slammed Hermione Granger pretty hard as well. Avalon felt bad for her.

Lost in her thoughts after she'd finished the magazine, Avalon didn't see the figure below her, but she felt the almost violent movement of the Whomping Willow as it tried to defend itself against them. "Hey up there!" the figure yelled. Avalon leaned over her hammock while riding it, using her body to balance it out so that she didn't tip over and fall. She saw the familiar yellow and black and knew it was a Hufflepuff. Looking back at her was Cedric Diggory, the boy she both did and didn't want to see right then.

"Hey yourself down there!" Avalon called back, even as her heart hammered at the sight of the older boy.

"Can I come up?"

"Uh..." Avalon's eyes widened a bit, but before she could say anything else, Cedric dodged a branch and did a strange sort of tuck and roll. He knocked on the truck when he got back to his knees, and then, when the tree stilled, he began to climb up. "Show off," Avalon said teasingly as he got to the branch across from her. He just smiled wryly back at her as he watched her climb out of the hammock and onto the branch itself so that she could remain face to face with him.

After a moment of silence, he said, "I heard you saw something in Divination."

"Rumor mill," Avalon sighed out. "Professor Trelawny said it couldn't be right. You Know Who isn't coming back and my cru-" Avalon clamped her mouth shut. "She thinks I'm trying to be like Harry Potter, but I'm not."

"I believe you," Cedric said with a small smile. If he caught on to Avalon's crush on him, he was nice enough to leave it alone and let her have her dignity.

"You do?"

"Yes. Thing is, Avalon, I know you won 20 points for Hufflepuff earlier this year for something in Divination. Now, I don't know what you did then, but I know Professor Trelawny enough to know that her points are awarded only for academics and taken away only for disruption in class. Your winning so many points in one sitting tells me that you know how to look into a crystal ball, which means-"

"You believe that what I saw was real," Avalon finished, shell-shocked.

"Yes," the boy said again. The two of them were silent for a beat as Avalon's feet swung beneath her on the branch. "It's just... Part of me wants to ask, but from what I heard, I don't want to know. I'm..."

"Scared, I get it," Avalon said.

"Does something go wrong in the competition?" Cedric finally asked, pinning Avalon with an intense and fearful stare.

"I- I don't know when it's supposed to happen," Avalon admitted, her eyes down.

"But Harry Potter was there?"

"Yes."

"How does he look?"

" 'Bout the same," Avalon said just as it hit her. "Don't- Whatever happens, don't let yourself get attached to Harry Potter-"

"Whatever happens, I can't let Harry go up against You Know Who alone."

"This is MAD, Cedric," Avalon exploded. "He's going to kill you first and THEN He'll kill Harry. We have to tell someone-"

"Like he did? Like YOU did? No one wants to believe that He's coming back- IF He's coming back. It's too scary, Avalon."

"What're you gonna do?"

"If you saw it- and I believe that you did and that its real- then it is going to happen regardless, right? I can't let him face The Dark Lord alone. I'll help him the best I can in the tournament and then..."

"Cedric-"

"Thank you for telling me, Avalon, but I don't want this to go further than this tree, okay?"

Avalon was struck speechless. She wanted to hit the stupid out of him, but she could see the heroics in it as well. She knew that he was right to assume no one would believe her, but she couldn't just keep quiet while one, possibly two boys died. She just couldn't! It wouldn't have been any different if she herself had used the Avada Kedavra spell on them. Her eyes welled up a little bit as images from her crystal ball entered her mind again. "I can't just do nothing, knowing what I know. I shouldn't have told you, you stupid boy!"

Cedric placed a hand on her shoulder. "We're in the same situation, you and I. Maybe I can make a difference somehow. Maybe, in that time it takes to... well... you know, Harry can find a way out. Maybe... Maybe I will just end up dead with him. Either way, I just know that if anyone has a chance against He Who Must Not Be Named, its Harry. When I do die, can I count on you to continue to help him in any way you can?"

"I don't know what I can do, but... Yes," Avalon choked out. The hand on her shoulder pat her twice before it left. Then Cedric began to climb down the branches.

"Remember, this stays between us, okay? I don't want you to get in any more trouble and lose more marks. I need you to help me watch after him, and you can't do that in detention."

"Yes, okay," Avalon called back. As she watched Cedric Diggory, she felt her tears fall faster in a constant stream this time. She knew that when she got back, people would assume her eyes were red from crying over her humiliation, but Avalon Lockhart knew that there were far more important things to cry about. And when, weeks later, she got a glimpse of Harry Potter over Cedric's prone body, she knew exactly why she mourned.


End file.
